


Friday She's in Love

by ThereIsOnlyZuul



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: F/M, Misunderstandings, New Beginnings, past history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23975824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsOnlyZuul/pseuds/ThereIsOnlyZuul
Summary: Cloud and Tifa have met again when neither thought they ever would. As Tifa longs for a connection, Cloud struggles to keep secrets. Rated M for sex. COMPLETE.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 11
Kudos: 89





	1. Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> Since the release of the FF7 remake, I seriously feel like I'm back in high school again because that was prime Cloud/Tifa fanfic writing time! These two will forever be my OTP so of course I needed to write something new. And unlike the stuff I wrote in high school, hopefully this is good lol!
> 
> This is set in the remake universe with Crisis Core backstory included and some slight tweaks to the universe in general to take out a little of the "fantasy" of Final Fantasy and make it more of a character piece and less of an "explaining what happened to Cloud after Nibelheim with Professor Hojo and all that" piece. 
> 
> I didn't really want to write about the world, I wanted to write about Cloud and Tifa struggling to make a connection in the present when they're both on totally different ends of a shared past. If that makes any sense.
> 
> Hopefully it does and you like what you read below!  
> Cheers!

There are some things from the past that Tifa thought she’d never know again. The apple tarts her mother used to make in the fall. The utter delight of waking up and finding money under her pillow from the tooth fairy. The feeling of living, growing grass under her bare feet. All feelings and tastes and people relegated to the past and not likely to ever be experienced again.

A boy that she knew from her hometown was one of those past experiences relegated to being nothing but a memory. His name was Cloud and they had been next door neighbours until he had left at fourteen to go be a SOLDIER. Then Shinra had destroyed their hometown and they had permanently gone their separate ways in the world.

But the age-old adage that the world really was a small place came true when Tifa was, quite out of the blue, set to meet with him once again. When she’d first learned of a mercenary named Cloud looking for work, the old, fuzzy childhood memories of the stoic little boy next door came to mind. But what were the odds of it actually being him? She’d never met anyone else named Cloud, but there was bound to be at least one other one on all the planet.

The doubt in her mind that it wasn’t going to be her long-lost childhood friend disappeared the moment she saw him again. The blond hair, the blue eyes, the quiet and disciplined attitude of an old, old soul in a young man: it was definitely Cloud Strife.

He walked through the door of Tifa’s bar looking around himself like he wasn’t sure this was where he was supposed to be. He was always like that when they were kids too. Despite Tifa always inviting him to play and be her friend, he never really seemed comfortable with it.

“Cloud?”

“I’m supposed to meet a person going by T.L. here about a job.”

“That’s me!” Tifa exclaimed maybe a little too loudly in the empty bar. 

“What’s the job?” He asked as he took a seat on a bar stool. He gave no indication that he knew who was standing on the other side of the bar talking to him.

“Cloud, don’t you recognize me?”

“Huh?” The confusion of the question showed plainly on his handsome face. There was a flash of something else too. Suspicion it looked like.

“I know it’s been a few years, but c’mon! Don’t the initials T.L. ring a bell?”

Cloud looked directly into Tifa’s eyes and the confusion evaporated immediately. Though the suspicion stayed. “Tifa Lockhart?”

Tifa smiled and said with a laugh: “Well it took you a minute, but you got there in the end! Cloud, I can’t believe it’s you! What are the odds? How’ve you been all these years?”

There were a lot of things that Cloud had prepared himself to face over the years, but meeting someone that had known him in the past and would want to catch up on what he’d been doing was not one of them. He never thought he’d meet someone he had known before: up to this very moment, he’d thought every single person from his past was dead. 

Consequently, he had no idea where to even start with answering the question Tifa had posed. “Fine. I’ve been… fine.”

Tifa laughed again. It was a light and delicate laugh, like the gentle twinkling of a bell. Cloud had forgotten that about her. 

“I see you haven’t gotten any more talkative since we last met.”

“I’m here for a job, Tifa, not a reunion.”

“Still as mean as ever too. Do you remember how mad I used to get when you’d ignore me when we were kids?”

“Kind of.”

“Only kind of?”

“I’d remember more but someone threw a rock at my head really hard when I was ten and gave me a concussion. It’s all been a bit of a blur since then.” He threw a pointed look at Tifa, a look that said he remembered just fine because she was the one that had hurled the rock at him.

Tifa laughed again. “I’m sure whoever hurled that rock at you would want you to use it as a lesson for future interactions. Especially if you ever met them again.”

Cloud rolled his blue eyes. “I can go right back to ignoring you, you know.”

“That’s fine, I won’t take it personally.”

“Won’t you? You always used to, Teef.”

Tifa looked startled for a moment before letting a small smile cross her lips. “I’ve missed that.”

“What?”

“Being called Teef. You’re the only person that ever called me Teef.” She never would have thought of Cloud’s simple term of endearment for her if he hadn’t been sitting across from her again. And she really, truly had missed it now that she remembered it.

Cloud opened his mouth to say something, but was at a loss of how to express the sentiment that he had missed calling her Teef as much as she missed being called it. So he shut his mouth and grunted quietly, his prefered way to communicate with his new tough mercenary act to upkeep. 

Tifa dropped her eyes to her hands that she hadn’t realized she’d been wringing nervously together. Re-meeting old friends was always awkward but Cloud had always been difficult to get through to, even after seven hours apart, let alone the seven years that was between them now.

And it didn’t help that Cloud was just so damn handsome now! Awkwardness from time apart with a side of awkwardness because Tifa wanted to stare gape-jawed at the beautiful man he’d become. And to think, all she wanted was to hire a mercenary. Things in Tifa’s life just had a habit of becoming much harder than they needed to be.

Cloud broke the awkward silence when it became clear that Tifa wasn’t going to. “So what’s this job you’ve got for me?”

“Oh, right, the job! I need a merc.”

Cloud refrained from saying that that was obvious. “What’s a nice girl like you need a merc for? Need me to stop boys from howling at you in the streets?”

If she answered yes, he honestly wouldn’t have been surprised. Tifa had always been a cute kid, and when they had parted ways as young teenagers, she was a pretty thirteen year old, but she was drop-dead gorgeous now. Her round face had become sharper with age, her body leaner but obviously strong: no doubt that she could do a lot worse nowadays than throw a rock really hard.

“Who said anything about me being a nice girl?”

The corner of Cloud’s mouth twitched into a smirk. “You’re right, you never were,” he replied without missing a beat. “My childhood brain injury must be acting up again to make me forget that.”

“You want an adulthood brain injury to match it?” Tifa shot right back.

“Why don’t you tell me about the job before you start threatening bodily harm?”

“It’s a pretty long story, how about a drink during?” Tifa asked as she motioned around herself at the vast supply of liquors.

“How about you just get to the point?”

Tifa sighed. She’d gone too far with the teasing threat she’d made and now Cloud was as tightly corked as the wine she kept in the basement. “Right. Okay. You know the group AVALANCHE?”

“The eco-terrorists?”

“We prefer Lifestream activists actually.”

“Don’t tell me you’re messing around with that group of crazies.”

“This bar is where all those crazies meet, Cloud.” When he rolled his eyes again, Tifa went immediately on the defensive. “And anyways, why shouldn’t I be a part of AVALANCHE? After what Shinra did to Nibelheim and my family, why shouldn’t I join a group that’s trying to take them down? Do you even know what happened to Nibelheim?”

“SOLDIER Sephiroth went rogue and destroyed it.” 

“Exactly. All because of Shinra and what they’ve done to the Lifestream and with mako. AVALANCHE is trying to stop it. I would have thought that it was a cause you could get behind as well! You lost people to them too, you must know about your mother’s death during Sephiroth’s rampage. But maybe you don’t feel that way. Not since you went on to become a loyal Shinra SOLDIER. Maybe you don’t care about what’s right anymore.”

“I’m an ex-SOLDIER now, Teef. I’m not interested in anything Shinra has to offer anymore.”

“Does that mean you’re interested in the job?”

“Tell me what it is and what it pays and we’ll see. And I’ll take that drink now.”

“Of course,” Tifa chirped, once again all smiles. “What’ll you have?”

“Something dark. And bitter.”

Tifa smiled to herself as she grabbed a pint glass and filled it with the darkest, most bitter beer she had on tap. His drink of choice was a perfect match to his personality. She needed him on her side though, so she refrained from saying that out loud. 

* * *

Tifa laid out the job with doodles on nearby cocktail napkins and many enthusiastic hand gestures. AVALANCHE was planning on bombing a Shinra reactor and needed some muscle to protect them on their way down to it. 

“And in a serendipitous bit of luck, you’ll even have some insider knowledge of Shinra operations; we can use your near decade’s worth of SOLDIER knowledge to our advantage. I’m even prepared to pay extra for that!”

“How much  _ are _ you paying?”

“Two thousand gil.”

Tifa delivered the information with her arms behind her back, the casual stance she’d taken since childhood. Though nowadays the stance seemed less casual and more to highlight Tifa’s ample chest. Cloud couldn’t help but look, they were perfectly eye level from his position on the bar stool, and perfect in every other way as well.

“Is that the starting bid or the highest you’ll go?” He asked, forcing his eyes away from Tifa’s cleavage and back up to her face. 

“Look around yourself Cloud,” Tifa said as she leaned towards him, “what do you think the answer to that question is?” 

Her chest, even closer to him now, drew his eyes again. As far as bargaining techniques went, they gave Tifa the upper hand. How much had she even offered in the first place? 

“So?” She asked after Cloud offered no reply. “You want the job or not?”

“It’s just the one mission?”

“Could be more if you’re any good. But it’ll just be this for now. And you can definitely pick up some odd jobs around here to make some extra gil before you head out with Barret this Friday.”

There were a lot of reasons why Cloud  _ shouldn’t _ take this job. A direct attack on Shinra was akin to a suicide mission. Shinra owned every war machine on the planet and they’d deploy them for situations a lot less severe than a bombing on one of their precious reactors. 

And then there was Tifa, someone from his past. Someone he’d long pined for... and mourned for. And here she was again. He didn’t know how, not after Nibelheim, but here she was... and was she ever eager to learn about Cloud. 

The only thing Cloud had to offer was secrets, and none of them good. Tifa wasn’t likely to ever learn them if he didn’t directly tell her, but being around her raised the chances that he would tell her something. If he wasn’t around her, he couldn’t give up any of his secrets.

But there she was in front of him, in a completely random meeting that could mean nothing:  _ should  _ mean nothing. All he had to do was tell himself that this was  _ nothing  _ and move on just like he always did. But as he stared into Tifa’s big, brown eyes, he found it a rather painful thought that this should mean nothing just like everything else in his life.

“I’m in.”

Tifa bounced up on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands. “That’s great, Cloud! Thank you!”

Her enthusiasm was almost infectious. But Cloud had a persona to play, now more than ever. “Don’t thank me. Just pay me.”


	2. Wednesday

Cloud arrived in the Sector 7 slums on Tuesday morning, met with Tifa at eleven, and was hired for her little activist mission before it even hit noon. The attack wasn’t planned until Friday night, leaving Cloud to drift around the scrapyard slums for three days. 

He had just enough gil in his pocket to feed himself until AVALANCHE handed over his fee, and before Tifa even offered him a free room at the boarding house she lived in, he was willing to spend the nights sleeping on the ground. It wouldn’t be his first time trying to find a comfortable spot in the dirt.

It was the boredom of waiting for the job to start that posed the biggest problem. The room at the boarding house was small and dark and held only a bed, a sink, and an empty trunk for storage. No books, no television, not even any stains on the bare cement ceiling for him to stare at. The only person he knew was Tifa and he’d heard her in her next door room leaving hours ago to go get her bar ready for the new day.

Noon rolled around, a clock in one of the other rooms chimed the hour. Twenty-four hours had passed since Cloud had come to town. It felt like an eternity with nothing to do.

He’d have to go bother Tifa if he wanted time to pass any quicker. The prospect of spending more time with her was a giddy feeling, a light feeling. A feeling he had memories of when they were teenagers. 

Last night, he’d told himself over and over that he couldn’t get wrapped up with her, that he’d just hide away until the mission, talk to her one last time to get paid, and then get the hell out of the Sector 7 slums. There was no need to be her friend. Not after everything that had happened in SOLIDER or Nibelheim… especially after Nibelheim. 

He’d been there for the town’s destruction. When Sephiroth had gone on that rampage, Tifa had gotten caught in the middle of it and he’d found her gravely wounded. He’d pulled her from the imminent threat of the exploding mako reactor, but then the whole town was razed to the ground anyways. Everyone else had died. He thought she had died too. 

Everything had changed for Cloud after that. And there was no way he’d ever be able to explain it all to her, so it was best just to stay away from her.

Funny thing though, after talking to her yesterday, he couldn’t get her off his mind. He had gone over their brief interaction from start to finish in his mind at least a dozen times already today. But it didn’t sustain him. Each time he went over it, it left him feeling emptier and emptier, like the memories of Tifa’s smile and laugh and body and her big, beautiful, brown eyes were depleting, giving him less every time he brought it to mind. He’d have to see her again for more. 

After Cloud had made up his mind to see her, he had nearly sent himself sprawling to the ground trying to get his pants on quicker while he dressed. And he very nearly ran down the crowded, hard-packed dirt road to get to Seventh Heaven.

He had that impervious tough guy routine to play though so he took a deep breath and entered the bar like he hadn’t just run here in total desperation to be with Tifa again.

She was behind the bar when he entered, her back to the door.

“Sorry, we’re not open yet!” She called out without turning around. 

When Cloud walked further in, Tifa sighed but still didn’t turn around. 

“Listen guys, I know you’re dying to get in here and drink but I can’t sell you liquor before I officially open for the day.”

When Cloud took a seat at the bar, Tifa whipped around with a string of expletives ready to launch right in the face of the brazen bastard that wouldn’t take no for an answer. The sight of Cloud staring at her with his piercing blue eyes had her immediately swallowing all the rude things she was about to yell. 

“Cloud! Hey!”

The way her face went from righteous fury to a bright smile made Cloud feel like she was happy to see him. What a nice surprise that was. “Hey.” 

He smiled slightly when he greeted her today and Tifa’s stomach fluttered. Since leaving him to his own devices yesterday, he hadn’t left her thoughts for a second. She couldn’t get his face out of her mind, his voice out of her ears. She had thought about him on and off again for years now, but actually seeing him again reignited something in her. It was a happy distraction, but it made for a long night on the job as she messed up just about every drink order that came her way.

“Nice to see you out and about. I almost expected you to stay in your room until Friday night.” 

“You remember me better than I thought you would.”

Tifa let out a nervous laugh. It didn’t need to be nervous, but it came out that way with Cloud’s glowing blue mako eyes on her.

The sound of the door opening drew both their attention. It was a group of five guys, all smiling in a way they probably thought was suave but was anything but. 

“Tifa, you opening early today?” Asked the one out in front. 

“No Johnny, I’m not.” 

“Blondie at the bar says otherwise,” he said with a laugh as him and his lackeys started pulling back chairs at a table.

The look on Tifa’s face made it clear this was a common occurrence with these guys. If they weren’t scared of Tifa (though Cloud had no idea how they couldn’t be), he’d make it his business to make them scared of him.

Cloud stood, turning to face the group. “The lady said she’s closed. Listen to her.”

“Yeah?” The one named Johnny sneered. “And what are you going to do about it if we don’t?”

They’d given up sitting and were instead moving towards him in an overly macho attempt to intimidate him. Johnny moved in close to Cloud’s face to try and stare him down.

“Go. Now. I won’t say it again.”

Tifa piped up from behind Cloud at that moment. “Johnny, do what he says, will you? SOLDIERs don’t make idle threats.”

A second passed silently as that information sank in.

“Oh shit, look at his eyes! He is SOLDIER!” One of the guys behind Johnny shouted. That was all it took for the four lackeys to bolt for the door.

“S-SOLDIER?” Johnny tried to step back, but Cloud grabbed him by the collar and brought him back in close. 

“How’d you miss the five foot sword strapped to my back?”

Johnny only had to see the hilt of said five foot sword over Cloud’s shoulder to go completely limp. He crumpled to the ground when Cloud let go of his collar.

“I guess he’s not up to a fight.” 

“Well that’s Johnny for you,” Tifa laughed as she leaned over the counter to look at his unconscious body. “All bark, absolutely no bite.”

“The worst,” Cloud said as he put his boot on Johnny’s shoulder and kicked him to sprawl on his back. 

“I usually just put up with it. He has some idea of our AVALANCHE goings-on here at the bar.”

“And uses that leverage to be a total asshole?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

He was coming to, his eyes blinking open, his brain trying to process why he was on the ground.

“Want me to deal with him?” Cloud asked as he drew his sword and pointed it right at Johnny’s throat. He yelped and quickly passed out again. “Is he kidding me with this?” Cloud asked with a smirk as he booted him again.

Tifa found no humour in the situation. “Put your sword away. He doesn’t need to die!”

“It would put an end to your problems.”

“He’s not that big a problem!”

“But he could be.”

“No! Stop! He’s an asshole but he’s a manageable asshole, okay? He was just trying to prove he was the alpha when you told him to leave.”

“If you say so,” Cloud didn’t want this to turn into a huge deal, he really didn’t care what happened to the dickhead on the ground either way. He left him alone and sat back down on his bar stool. “At least he offered a moment’s entertainment.”

“Is that why you came in?” Tifa asked as she hopped over the counter to take a closer look at Johnny. If he had only lightly passed out when he had learned that Cloud was SOLDIER, he heavily passed out when the sword came into play. Tifa couldn’t rouse him with face slaps or shaking or calling his name.

“I’m bored, Teef.”

“It’s clear you’re new to the slums because any regular knows where to find excitement down here.”

“I’m open to any suggestions you’ve got.”

“Well, what do you want to do?” Tifa asked as she leaned against the bar. “See a movie? Go shopping? Exercise? Drink? My bar’s not open yet but there’s a skin bar down the street that goes twenty-four hours a day.” The skin bar suggestion was made with a sidelong glance to see what Cloud’s reaction would be.

Surprisingly, he took it as a joke. “You think I have the spare gil to go to a skin bar?”

“How about picking up some odd jobs then? That skin bar is always looking for new talent, you know.”

“The outfits aren’t really my thing.”

“But the outfits come off!”

Cloud sighed in exasperation, but it wasn’t completely lacking in mirth, he was still in on the joke even if he was tiring of it. He remembered Tifa being like this as a kid too. “Do you have any legitimate suggestions for odd jobs?” 

“The neighbourhood watch is always looking for help.”

“How much does it pay?”

“Not crazy well but you’ll build up rep pretty quickly. Mercs need a lot of rep, right?”

“I’m too good to not get paid for my work,” Cloud remarked. 

“But too bored to turn me down, right?” A tough guy grunt was Tifa’s reply. “That’s what I thought. Now, let’s get Johnny out of here and then we can find some trouble.”

“We?” Cloud asked. “You think you can keep up with a SOLDIER?”

“Keep up with  _ you _ ? You’ll be keeping up with  _ me _ . Unless you’ve suddenly learned your way around this place.” Cloud didn’t even bother to grunt this time, Tifa knew the answer. “Okay, let’s go!”

Tifa jogged to the door, throwing it open and holding it open for Cloud who came through a second later, Johnny dragging behind him.

“Where do you want him?” 

“There’s fine,” Tifa pointed right in front of the door she was currently locking up. “It’s usually where I find him in the morning when I come to start prep work for the day. He’ll feel right at home. And after I show you around Sector 7, so will you!”

Again, her enthusiasm was infectious. This time, Cloud even let a small smile show. Maybe the problem he was making of Tifa in his own mind wasn’t going to be a problem after all.

* * *

The odd jobs around the Sector 7 slums certainly were  _ odd _ . There was a shopkeeper worried about Doomrats, and a kid with analysis tech that he was hoping to take down Shinra with, and a scrap buyer worried about a feral guard door hurting his scavenger customers. Oddest of all was a little girl looking for her friends. Her friends who were cats. 

Cloud wasn’t interested in the handful of candy the kid was offering as payment despite Tifa’s teasing prodding that it was a good payout.

“I think you’d be crazy to turn this down, Cloud,” she said with a wide smile. “Word travels quick on this playground.”

“Yeah, just what I need, all my customers being ten and under and paying in sweets. Maybe I can open up a doll hospital while I’m at it.”

“Oh! I’m missing a dolly too!” The little girl shouted, the sarcasm of the adults standing above her going totally over her four year old head.

“SOLDIERs don’t play hide-and-seek.”

“My friends aren’t hiding! They’re lost! There’s a difference,” the little girl exclaimed, sticking her tongue out at Cloud as she did so.

Tifa laughed again, obviously enjoying herself. “Sorry Betty, I think Cloud might not be the right man for your job. How about you tell Marlene about all this and she can help you when she comes by to play next?”

That seemed to please the little girl and she ran off to rejoin the game of tag she’d broken away from to come and talk to Tifa and the big, bad merc that she was trying to sell to the people of the slums.

“Who’s Marlene?” Cloud asked as they exited the playground. There wasn’t much difference visually between the playground and the scrap metal houses, besides that the scrap that made up the playground was brightly painted.

“Barret’s daughter,” Tifa replied. “Adopted daughter, actually. She was a baby when her parents were killed by Shinra. Barret took her in because he was friend’s with them. I look after her a lot because Barret runs AVALANCHE, so that playground is my second home. Which is only sad until you know what my first home is like,” she added with a sardonic laugh at her own expense. “I actually wish I had a bigger place for when I have to take her home with me.”

“Must be rough,” Cloud remarked.

“It’s not. Not really. She’s the cutest little thing. Very smart for a four year old. And she helps me behind the bar most nights. It’s nice to have an employee I can pay in candy,” she added with a laugh, no doubt remembering Betty’s offer for Cloud’s services. 

“Little young to be slinging drinks, isn’t she?”

“She’s mostly food prep,” Tifa clarified, hoping Cloud didn’t take her for a complete idiot. “Though some nights she’s on the grill from open to close. She makes a mean cheeseburger, you know.”

Cloud snorted a laugh and Tifa joined in, realizing how ridiculous she sounded. 

“I know, I sound like a crazy person. My own mother would have had a heart attack if she caught me at the stove as a four year old. But here I am letting Marlene run the kitchen of a bar in the slums. Things are so different underneath the plates, huh?”

“Why not leave, Teef? Go elsewhere? There are places in the world that Shinra doesn’t own, you don’t have to be here at the heart of it.”

Tifa shook her head with a sad little noise from the back of her throat. “Even if I believed for one second that Shinra didn’t have the whole planet in the palm of their corporate hand, it’s not just about Shinra or AVALANCHE. I like Midgar. I like the noise, I like the people. I hated it when I first got here, but now I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Five years.”

“Five years?” That put Tifa in Midgar under the plates from the destruction of their hometown to the present. Nibelheim had been destroyed when she was fifteen. Her father died in the conflict right before the fire that burned it to the ground and her mother had been dead long before that. 

Five years poor and alone in a slum, and yet she just kept on smiling. Cloud had always admired her resoluteness that life was never bad if you just didn’t  _ let  _ it be bad.

“The sun is starting to set,” Tifa commented as they rounded the corner of the business district of the slums and Seventh Heaven came into view in the distance. “Guess I better go open for business.”

There was an irksome lurch in Cloud’s heart at the thought of Tifa ending their alone time together to go serve cocktails to assholes like Johnny.

“Do you have anyone that could cover for you?”

“At the bar?”

“Yeah. So you could take a night off. And… we could go out.”

Was Cloud Strife asking her out on a date? The butterflies in her stomach, that Cloud’s regular presence made flutter, were suddenly jackhammering around at the thought of a date with Cloud.

“I-I would like that!” She exclaimed with a smile. “We don’t have anywhere fancy to sit down and eat or anything, but I know a place that’ll satisfy a hunger.”

Though maybe not the hunger she was currently experiencing at the thought of Cloud all to herself.

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Um… okay, let me just go run and tell Jessie I need her help tonight. Jessie is a member of AVALANCHE so she’s at the bar enough to know how to run it. When should we meet?”

“How about when the stars come out?”

“But there’s no stars under the plates.”

Cloud shrugged. “Alright then, forget it.”

“No!” Tifa shouted. Whether Cloud was teasing or not, Tifa wasn’t going to risk him backing out of this date! “Let’s say nine, okay? Meet me outside Seventh Heaven.”

“I’ll be there.” Cloud turned to head back to his room. He called over his shoulder as he left: “But maybe I’ll keep you waiting like you left me waiting on the water tower that night.”

“You better not, I won’t wait around all night for you!” Tifa replied.

Yeah, right, what a lie. Cloud could jump over fashionably late, into regular late, and into unforgivably late and Tifa would stay where she was until he showed up. She just hoped that Cloud didn’t know that.

* * *

Jessie, the overly peppy bomb maker of AVALANCHE, lived in a sort of hostel in the centre of the slums. She’d always wanted to be an actress, and as it turned out, so did a bunch of other girls in the slums, so there was a boarding house operation that catered to them. Tifa was well known and well liked among the actresses that called it home and could move through it without question.

She found Jessie in the kitchen angrily punching at a pile of dough on the counter.

“Hello Jessie. Everything all right?”

“Hey Tifa, and no! I didn’t get the call back that I wanted and I wasted a whole spool of wire earlier trying to work out an ignition panel for Friday’s job. So I’m taking my aggression out on my mom’s pizza dough recipe!”

“How’d you like to take out some of that frustration on Sector 7 drunks?”

Jessie guessed right away what Tifa was asking. “That sounds like an awful way to end an already awful day if I’m being honest with you, Tifa.”

“Please Jessie? I need the night off.”

“Why? You never take nights off.”

“I’ve got… a date.”

Jessie’s attention was suddenly laser focused on Tifa. “Tifa Lockhart has finally decided to open her heart? To throw caution to the wind in these trying times and, dare I say it? Take a lover?”   


Jessie always was one for flare and dramatics, and that she seemed so sure Tifa was about to take a lover had a redhot blush spreading quickly over Tifa’s face. “I don’t know if it’s really that big a deal-”

“Who is he?”

“No one you know.”

“But I’d like to!”

“Maybe not yet,” Tifa said, thinking how Jessie would soon know Cloud, she’d hired him to protect her after all. But for right this very moment, Tifa wanted Cloud all to herself.

“Wow, he must be really good looking if you’re keeping me away from him before you’ve had your chance!” Jessie exclaimed with a laugh. Tifa blushed again, Jessie might have been teasing, but she was mostly right. “Well, okay, I’ll look after the bar tonight. But I have a condition.”

“Sure.”

“Borrow something good and sexy to wear from my closet, okay? Whoever this guy is, is already insanely lucky to have gotten your attention, really drive it home just how lucky!”

Tifa agreed with a laugh and that was that. Jessie threw her ball of dough into the fridge and headed to Seventh Heaven and Tifa headed to Jessie’s small room to get ready.

Not that she needed to get ready right away. It was still a few hours yet till nine o’clock. She had plenty of time. What torture that was going to be.

Minutes passed like hours as she scrubbed up under the lukewarm water of Jessie’s shared bathroom and then dug through the vast collection of clothing Jessie had on tap. The girl used to live topside with a well-to-do family of Shinra workers. She’d downgraded the view and her private room when she’d come to Sector 7, but she’d kept all her clothes.

Tifa tried on all of it to pass the time but found nothing that she really wanted to wear. So on went the clothing Cloud had already seen her in today, paired with a trendy (and genuine, that was a rarity) leather jacket. 

Jessie would no doubt complain she hadn’t gone wild enough, but Tifa was happy with it. Made her look fierce, and she needed that, because at the thought of Cloud’s blue eyes on her, she felt anything but.

* * *

The hourly chiming clock from somewhere within the boarding house rang out nine times. 

Nine o’clock. Time to meet Tifa.

But Cloud didn’t move from where he sat on the edge of his bed. Suddenly, he was very, very nervous about seeing Tifa again. Hadn’t he spent the night before telling himself to just leave her alone? Why had he asked her to spend  _ more  _ time with him? Had he really been that tempted by her? Enchanted by her?

The answer to those questions was a definite yes. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. But despite wanting nothing more than to get lost in the deep wells of her empathetic eyes, he couldn’t look into her eyes without seeing the flames of Nibelheim and her, bleeding and motionless on the ground. 

“Do I stand her up?” Cloud asked himself as he stood to pace.

That seemed like a terrible idea. Tifa had been looking forward to this, he’d seen the delight on her face when he’d asked. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer at this point. Besides, he’d seen Tifa in action earlier, charging straight in to fight feral beasts with her bare fists. Those that willingly choose to go into situations completely unarmed were a rare breed. And a scary one. He didn’t need her kicking down his door and coming at him with those fists.

“Could I tell her the truth?”

Another option that would probably end with fists being swung at him. And much worse. She’d never talk to him again if she knew just how badly Cloud had let her down.

“I’m just going to have to go.” It was weird coming to this conclusion. It was the wrong conclusion but it felt like the right one, so it was easy to make himself believe it was the right conclusion after all.

He’d just have to make sure to stay guarded. They’d spent all afternoon together and nothing had imploded. Tonight wouldn’t be any different.

The things a man with an itch would tell himself.

* * *

Cloud was late. Only a few minutes late, but still late.

“I suppose he hadn’t been lying about being fashionably late,” Tifa sighed to herself as she dropped to the bottom step of the patio of her bar. 

The slums were loud tonight as people traipsed about looking for food or entertainment. Tifa stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned back, listening to the snippets of conversation that passed her. Most headed right past her into Seventh Heaven and most said hello to her as they passed. She smiled up at all of them, happy to be acknowledged.

Cloud strode quickly down the dirt road to Seventh Heaven, it came into view under the glowing street lights and Tifa was revealed lounging on its lowest step. He stopped for a moment to appreciate her smiling dreamily up at those that spoke to her as they passed. How did she manage to keep smiling after everything that had happened?

Tifa heard Cloud approaching, the heavy steps of his boots, the occasional clang of his sword. She played it cool though and let him approach without her staring. She was proud of herself for that. She was on her feet as soon as he was beside her though, so maybe still a little over eager.

“Hey,” he said with a small smile.

“Hey!” Tifa practically shouted back. “Ready to eat?”

“Lead the way.”

Just as Tifa and Cloud began to move away from Seventh Heaven, a loud knocking drew their attention back. It was Jessie inside the bar, banging at the window. She was looking from Cloud to Tifa and then back again, a look of shock on her face. Tifa couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the mouth shapes she was making, along with the pointing right at Cloud, suggested her disbelief in Cloud’s beauty.

“Who’s that?” Cloud asked.

“Jessie,” Tifa responded as she threw up a small wave and turned away.

“She’s about to punch through that glass. Does she... need help?” He asked after casting one last glance at the girl in the window.

“Perpetually,” Tifa answered with a laugh, “but she’ll be fine Now c’mon, I’m starving.”

Tifa clasped Cloud’s wrist long enough to get him moving in the direction of the street with all the food stalls and off they went into the nightlife of the Sector 7 slums. 

* * *

All the stalls selling food weren’t far from Seventh Heaven but it was a busy night and the lineups for everything were long.

“Wouldn’t it be quicker to make yourself food at your own bar?” Cloud asked as Tifa hmm’ed-and-haa’ed at her choices.

“If I have to eat any more bar food, I’m going to scream. I want something a little different tonight… oh! Perfect!” Tifa made her choice, choosing one of the lineups and planting herself firmly in it. “This is gonna take a minute, why don’t you go grab us our seats?”

“Where?” Cloud looked around himself but there wasn’t anywhere to sit. Unless the dirt counted, then there were lots of places.

“That tall building there,” Tifa pointed and Cloud followed her finger to where she meant. “There’s a staircase around the back that leads to the roof. It’s no water tower, but it’s a nice view. As long as you haven’t lost your stomach for high up places.”

“I haven’t.”

“Good, I’ll meet you up there shortly.”

Cloud retreated and Tifa watched him go. So did everyone else on the street. In just an afternoon around the slums, he’d sure made a name for himself. But Tifa found herself wondering how was it he never made a name for himself in SOLDIER? They were the poster boys of Shinra’s vast armies, most of them ending up on recruitment posters or television ads for the program. At the very least his name should have appeared in the papers in the column where all newly recruited SOLDIERs were introduced to the world. But she had never seen him there.

Tifa had spent years thinking she must have just missed it. Maybe she had. After all, he clearly had SOLIDER training the way he handled his sword and body. She decided to ask him about it while they ate. 

* * *

Tifa was right, the view was far from as nice as it had been in Nibelheim, but it would do. Cloud climbed on to the ledge and let his legs hang over the side to make it more like his water tower memories. 

Tifa soon came bearing two containers of her selected street stall food and a six pack of glass bottled beers that she’d quickly legged it back to Seventh Heaven for. She’d snuck in through the backdoor because she did not have time to be inundated with Jessie’s questions about Cloud right now.

Tifa placed the clinking bottles on the ledge and took a seat beside them. “Here you go,” Tifa smiled as she pulled the lid off one of the containers and placed it under Cloud’s nose.

“What is it?” Cloud asked as he took it. It smelled decent but the brown slurry of whatever it was made him hesitant.

Tifa laughed at the look that briefly passed over Cloud’s face. He was definitely new to the slums; she herself had been weary of the food stalls when she’d first arrived too. “It’s not Doomrat if that’s what you’re worried about. Doomrat meat is the stall beside where I got this.”

“A comforting thought,” Cloud replied.

Tifa held out a spoon to him. “It’s gumbo.”

“Which is what?”

“Don’t question it Cloud, just eat it. I promise you it’s good. Especially with a cold beer.” Tifa used the edge of the ledge they had perched on to pop the bottle cap off a bottle and held it out to Cloud. 

When she had one in her own hand, they were clinked together and their date officially began.

* * *

Neither really spoke while they ate but they were both hungry and the food was long gone before too much awkward silence had passed.

“That was good,” Cloud said when the container was empty and Tifa handed him a second bottle of beer.

“Told ya,” she replied with a satisfied smile. “Stick with me and you’ll see Sector 7 isn’t so bad.”

“Think you can get Jessie to cover some extra nights so I can?”

“Probably not now that she’s seen you. That girl will sink her claws in any good looking man.”

_ Good looking man _ was such a generic compliment and Cloud had heard it many times before, but it was truly flattering coming from Tifa. She wasn’t the type of person to say things she didn’t believe completely.

“Hey, Cloud?”

“Yeah?”

“How were your years as a SOLDIER?”

Cloud shrugged. “Standard. I guess. It’s not like there were any wars left to fight by the time I got there.”

“Where did you go? What did you do?” 

Cloud sighed. Tifa was prying. Not unkindly or with any ulterior motives, but she  _ was  _ prying. “I went to  _ places _ . And did  _ things _ .” He hoped the sarcasm would discourage her, but it did the opposite.

“Oh c’mon,” Tifa said as she popped open another beer for herself, “Humour me with some stories. I’ve been here for the last five years and this place never changes. Even the boring stuff you’ve done will be entertaining.” Tifa was probably being insensitive. She wasn’t entitled to Cloud’s memories, she was just curious. 

Cloud stayed silent. Tifa looked to see what his story telling holdup was and saw he was wringing his hands tightly over the beer bottle. 

“I suppose you had to do some terrible things, huh?” 

Slowly and deliberately Cloud responded: “Yeah. I did.” 

If she dropped this topic now, his mood could be salvaged and the night saved from his own temper. He got so mad thinking about how his life had turned out. It was more than his disenchantment at Shinra and SOLDIER and adulthood in general. Right now, it was how much of a stupid coward he’d been and was continuing to be by lying to Tifa that was rankling him so much.

She didn’t drop the topic though. She continued on blissfully unaware that she’d already wounded Cloud and was now grinding salt into the open, bleeding sore.

“How come your name never showed up in the SOLDIER new recruitment pages?”

The answer to that question was a violent outburst. Cloud was on his feet in a second, knocking the remaining beer over the side of the building to have it shatter on the ground below. The bottle that remained gripped in his hands was thrown at the house that was across from where they sat. It smashed into a window, immediately bringing a response from the inhabitant. A light clicked on and they rushed to the window to start a fight. When they saw it was a man with a five foot sword on his back, the light was quickly extinguished. 

If Tifa had known Cloud’s moods were as easy to flip as that light switch, she wouldn’t have reached for it.

“Cloud…”

He turned towards Tifa and she braced herself for him to start yelling. But he didn’t. His voice was as measured and level as it had ever been.

“You don’t know me, Tifa. You never will. Stop trying.”

Cloud stormed off to brood.

Tifa stayed put to wonder what she’d done wrong this time. 

It’s like they were children once again. 

* * *

There wasn’t anywhere in Sector 7 that Cloud had to go to except his small, concrete boarding house room. When he ran off from Tifa, he went straight there. He locked the door behind him and kept the lights off, hiding in the darkness like Tifa might have forgotten he lived next door to her.

The sounds of Tifa’s return came not long after Cloud had dropped onto his bed to stare at the ceiling. He almost expected her to come knocking on his door like when they’d fight as kids and she got it in her head to continue the fight on her own terms.

She didn’t. He heard her door open slowly and then close slowly. And then there was silence.

* * *

Tifa hadn’t wanted to come home but she couldn’t face the crowd at the bar; Jessie had no doubt told them all about her date (exaggerating as she went) and there was no way she was going in there on the verge of tears to questions and, inevitability, a whole pile of pity when she burst into tears from the questions!

So she went home. As quietly as she possibly could because she wasn’t sure where Cloud was and she wasn’t sure what was going to set him off on her again.

Had it been the questions about SOLDIER? Sure, he’d never really been into sharing about himself, but she’d never met a SOLDIER that didn’t want to talk about his exploits: that was the whole point of being a SOLDIER, wasn’t it? Why was Cloud so different? What had they made Cloud do?

The nightlight that glowed in the corner, one of the many little artifacts of Marlene’s constant presence, cast enough light, so she didn’t turn on any lights as she undressed. 

The tears she’d been trying so hard to hold back on the streets of the slum started to drop as she sat on the edge of her bed to stare at the wall she shared with Cloud.

* * *

When Tifa returned, there was silence until she began to cry. It came clear as day through the thin wall his room shared with hers.

This is why he hadn’t wanted to get too close to her. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. But when she wanted the truth from him, hurt was the only thing he could give her. Either with the truth itself or hiding the truth from her, hurt was the only option.

Cloud couldn’t stand to hear her crying though and made a break for the door. He’d find somewhere high up to take refuge, like he used to in Nibelheim on the water tower. Tifa had always joined him on the water tower though, and they’d sit with their legs dangling over the side as they stared up at the stars.

The stars weren’t visible in Midgar, not even on the upper plates. There were a million little lights on the underside of the plates, but they made a poor substitution. And without Tifa beside him, smiling in that dreamy way she always did when her optimism got the best of her, what was the point?

Damnit, why couldn’t he get Tifa off his mind? Why were memories of her suddenly so vivid? Why did he feel such an intense longing to make more memories with her? Why did he care so much that she was crying that he felt he had to run away from it? And why was he completely unable to run away from it now that he was standing in front of her door?

Running away had always been so easy before but now...

His hand was on her doorknob, turning it and pushing open the metal door before he realized what he was doing.

Tifa was sitting on the edge of her bed, her feet splayed out but her knees together to rest her elbows on as she cried into her hands. She was startled by his sudden entrance, jumping up to see who’d been brave enough (or stupid enough) to walk right into her rented room.

Her lithe form was backlit by a small night light plugged into the wall. It looked like a ball of materia, glowing blue like it promised all the power of mako and not just a small comfort in the dark of night. The soft blue light framed Tifa with an ethereal glow. Her pale skin was luminescent like the Lifestream and Cloud wanted nothing but to trail his fingers over her and see if she could heal like the Lifestream could. 

“Cloud? What do you want  _ now _ ?” Tifa snapped. She crossed her arms over her chest, drawing Cloud’s attention there. She was without her studded gloves he saw. And as his eyes travelled downwards he saw she was without a lot more. Boots and skirt and socks were gone, leaving Tifa in nothing but her delicates. “I said,” she snapped again, angry to have to repeat herself “what do you want now?”

There was a sharp edge to her question, like she figured he’d already gotten the best of her so what was he doing back now?

He hadn’t gotten the best of her though, not by a long shot had he gotten the best of her. The best of her stood before him now, bathed in that gentle blue light. And that was the answer to her question of what he wanted now. But how to go about getting it? 

“Why are you crying, Teef?”

“If you can’t figure it out on your own, why should I waste my breath explaining it to you?” 

No, Cloud didn’t want her to waste her breath on that. He wanted her breath panting beneath him, hot on his neck while he was on top of her. 

Tifa worried when the silence stretched on. “Talk to me, Cloud. Please. That’s all I want.”

That’s right, Cloud had come in here to talk to Tifa. 

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he answered. It wasn’t true, there was plenty to talk about, but Cloud didn’t want to  _ talk  _ now.

Tifa uncrossed her arms with a tired sounding sigh. She clasped them behind her back again, her usual, casual stance. Couldn’t she feel that this wasn’t a time for casualness? The atmosphere around Cloud seemed to crackle like electricity, her displaying her ample chest wasn’t going to harmlessly discharge that electricity. 

“I just don’t understand you, Cloud.”

“You don’t want to.”

“But I do,” Tifa said as she stepped closer. The room was small and one step closer was all it took to put her within Cloud’s reach. “I wanted to when we were kids too. But you never let me.”

“And I probably never will.”

If Tifa had been softening to him again, she immediately hardened from that. “Then get out.”

“No.”

“Get out of my room!” Tifa was getting angry, Cloud almost thought he could feel it at a molecular level. But maybe he was just feeling his own excitement.

“I’m not leaving, Tifa.”

“Don’t make  _ me  _ make  _ you  _ get out, Cloud.”

Despite the obvious threat, Cloud still made no move to go. He refused to leave and yet he also refused to talk. Still as stubborn as ever. Looks like she’d be making him leave. She hated to bruise up his beautiful face but if he was going to be difficult it was going to have to happen that way.

So she bawled her fist and struck out but Cloud was too fast. Putting that SOLDIER training to use, he caught her by the wrist and pinned it to her side. Before she’d even tried with the other fist, he had that pinned too.

He wasn’t holding her too tightly, she could have broken out of it, fought him harder, but Cloud wasn’t looking for a fight, he was looking for something else entirely.

His lips were suddenly pressed against hers, rough and breathless and urgent. 

Tifa didn’t seem surprised by the kiss. Not with the fervor in which she returned it. He was a man that was going to take what he wanted and they both knew it. Best to just let the world fall away and enjoy the moment.

His hands released her wrists and were at the hem of her shirt, inching upwards. When she moaned in the back of her throat, Cloud’s urgency increased. He pulled away just long enough to pull off Tifa’s shirt. Then he was back to her lips and pushing against her, making her back up towards her bed. 

The back of her knees hit her bedframe and she dropped to her mattress, the old springs squealing in protest to her sudden weight, and then again as Cloud added his weight to it. 

The demanding kisses continued and quickly came his feverishly hot hands moving over the contours of her body. Over her hips and breasts and throat and running through her hair. It was a delight, pure bliss. 

But through the fog that lust had created, some part of Tifa’s mind began to wonder if this was going to help anything at all. After all, things in Tifa’s life often turned out harder than they needed to. 

Though it was impossible to think about the future when there was something hard pressed up against her right now in the present.

Forgetting her reservations, Tifa wrapped her arms around Cloud’s neck to submerge herself fully in the moment. He groaned from the soft caress of her fingertips on the back of his neck. His omnipresent sword was still on his back and she was suddenly caught up in laughter, breaking away from the kisses to giggle at the ridiculousness of Cloud’s eager passion. How was it possible to forget to take off a five foot sword? 

Cloud could only just hear Tifa’s twinkling bell laughter through the blood pounding behind his ears. He didn’t stop to ask what was so funny though. Denied Tifa’s mouth, he simply moved to her throat. 

These kisses were softer and seemed, to Tifa, sparser. Was he withholding them now? To punish for her laughter? Or did he want a response in return to them? He wasn’t left wanting for one for long, Tifa was practically purring beneath him. 

Tifa’s pleasure was a potent encouragement. He slipped his fingers under the tiny little pair of panties she wore and pulled them off, tossing them behind him and spreading her legs before she’d even comprehend that he’d stopped kissing her neck.

He growled her name as he spread her legs, the first thing he’d said since he’d begun his ravenous consumption of her body and it brought her temporarily back to the situation and what was happening. 

“Cloud, wait...”

He did. He looked up at Tifa, his mako eyes glowing from the weak light of Tifa’s kitchy little nightlight: maybe the mako would make them glow even without the light. She pushed herself up onto her elbows to easier look into his beautiful eyes.

“Maybe we shouldn’t.”

“No?” He asked, his voice thick from lust, barely above a whisper. 

“Maybe no,” Tifa whispered back, unsure of why she’d stopped him in the first place. The hunger in his eyes was probably a direct mirror of her own because she _ did _ want this: she  _ really _ wanted it. But this prolonged anticipation was something the heroine always did in the over-the-top romance novels that Tifa secretly delighted in reading. 

It was a token resistance, and Cloud seemed to know it because he smirked and continued what he had set out to do. And what he had set out to do was dip his head between her wide open legs and elicit a different purr from her.

Tifa gasped in surprise. But the surprise passed in a second and she sank back into her pillow with a moan, content to focus on nothing but moving in shameless delight to match his rhythm and the melting sensation that was spreading through to her core. 

Just as her melted core was resolidifying into a bubble of carnal tension she was eager to pop, Cloud pulled away. She groaned in frustration but he delighted in her reaction.

“Is it still a  _ maybe _ to me stopping?”

Mindless with need and obstinate to the teasing, she instinctively reached out to pull him back down to her, and by the hair at that. The girl was desperate for it. That suited Cloud fine. There was a smile on his face as he went back down on her.

She must have been close when Cloud teasingly stopped because she was quickly back into it, moaning long and low from the back of her throat and digging her fingernails into his head. She’d probably draw blood when she came; but at least this blood loss would come by an entirely more enjoyable way than her throwing rocks.

Tifa’s climax came suddenly. A shout escaped her at the burst of pleasure, followed quickly by slackening of every muscle in her body and a moan that ended in Cloud’s name. 

If Cloud had left then, Tifa could have no doubt peacefully drifted off to sleep. Her orgasm was like an elixir, a satiation for an animal need. For her at least. Cloud’s thirst wasn’t quenched yet. 

Cloud reemerged from between Tifa’s thighs and stood. At the beginning of this he thought he could have done nothing but  _ give _ , but Tifa’s crying out of his name had made this so much more urgent. It was time to take.

The sword clattered to the ground but that was all Cloud shed in his haste to get his. In his impetuous impatience to gratify his own wants, he unzipped, pulled out, and thrust in. 

He growled as he slid into her.

She gasped. 

It wasn’t an unpleasant experience for Tifa, it was actually completely intoxicating to be this close to Cloud, to wrap her legs around him and once again match his rhythm. But the metal of his belt buckles was cold, the fabric of his pants rough on her thighs, and he ignored her want for more kisses when her lips searched for his. Pinned naked beneath him, Tifa thought it was all very impersonal after a very personal act just a moment ago.

Cloud said nothing during, he didn’t think he could if he tried. All he could think about was Tifa beneath him. Every little move she made added to the burning intensity that her calling his name had ignited. She had gasped when he’d entered her, angled herself upwards to him, wrapped her legs around him. She was sunk low in her pillow, her hair a wild mess around her head, her arms above her gripping the metal headboard of her bed. And most delicious of all, in between every pant, every moan, she was calling out his name.

It was enough to drive a man completely feral. 

And Cloud was. 

He groped roughly at her exposed skin, and when he couldn’t consume her enough that way, put his mouth to her flushed skin, first as kisses and then bites. He wanted every inch of her as his own.

Tifa let go of her headboard and wrapped her arms tightly around Cloud. She shouted again; clawed into him with her nails again. He’d proudly add the marks Tifa was leaving on him to the other scars that dotted his body. 

When her body relaxed again, Cloud lifted himself up to look down at her. She was pushing sweat slicked hair out of her eyes. And smiling dreamily. Just like she used to staring up at the stars.

It was the smile that pushed Cloud over the brink of ecstasy he’d been so precariously balanced on. She was so utterly beautiful when she smiled.

He withdrew himself then and came with a shuddering moan on her perfectly toned stomach.

The two of them physically sated, Tifa pushed herself up on her elbows again, searching for more kisses, looking for a little emotional connection because she wasn’t quite sure what to say to Cloud yet. 

But Cloud had other ideas. He emerged from the dark pool of passion he’d dove head first into and took a deep breath of realization.

He looked down at Tifa, trying to squirm out from under him, his bite marks clear against her pale skin, his orgasm used like a tag to mark his territory. 

He’d had sex before and never been so mindless in his pursuit for pleasure, why had he treated Tifa like this? Going at her like an animal with only instinct guiding him? 

He pulled away from Tifa quickly, climbing off the bed, tucking back in and zipping back up as if his earlier motions to get to her were simply being reversed on a tape.

“Cloud?” Tifa asked as he reholested his sword upon his back.

His response came quietly as he rushed to the door. Tifa couldn’t be sure because he left so quickly, but she thought he said sorry.


	3. Thursday

Tifa woke up long past her usual time, having gone to sleep long past her usual time. She had tossed and turned for hours. She had lost the ability to find a comfortable position on her bed. 

The only comfortable position she wanted was Cloud between her legs again.

Of course the ungrateful brute had rushed out as soon as he’d finished, and that should have insulted her, but it didn’t. It frustrated her, yes. Worried her even more.

What was it that had changed as soon as it was over? Had Cloud not enjoyed it? Had she done something wrong to put him off? 

After their time together yesterday afternoon, she had thought she was starting to figure him out again. She’d had him figured out as a kid, playing cool and distant to her and everyone else because he thought he was better than them. It was a childhood coping mechanism; one she’d briefly adopted herself after her mother’s death.

But now he was an adult and he’d gone from  _ playing  _ it cool and distant to just  _ being  _ cool and distant. 

That is, until he wasn’t. 

Last night when he’d climbed on top of her he’d been anything  _ but  _ cool and distant. Even before the sex, he’d seemed to be warming up to her, talking more comfortably, behaving like… well, like a human. 

Watching him enjoy his food on the rooftop last night had been the most innocent she’d seen him since she was nine and had knocked him out with a rock and unconsciousness had slackened his brooding features!

But then she’d asked him about SOLDIER and he’d exploded.

Why? What had happened to him in the seven years he’d been away from her and in the program? 

Cloud Strife made Tifa think of cloud watching, and not just because of the name. Cloud was like the clouds in the sky, because just when she thought she’d found a definitive shape in one, it shifted and became something else entirely.

Cloud was just too much like his namesake: drifting away whenever he felt like it.

Tifa didn’t really have time to lay in bed and try to figure out the enigma of a man that was in the room beside her, she had to get to Seventh Heaven and sort out any damage Jessie incurred last night. There was bound to be some.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about Cloud. And not even just Cloud from last night. Young Cloud wouldn’t leave her mind. The quiet, stoic boy next door, only a year older than her but acting like she was a lowly little baby next to him. Despite her best attempts, they’d never really been close as kids.

Their teenage years had been a little friendlier. Tifa’s chest had started coming in when she was twelve and she remembered that had changed quite a few boy’s attitudes towards her. She didn’t like to think that Cloud was that predictable, but after last night… maybe fourteen year old Cloud’s motivations for inviting her up the water tower with him were a little more obvious.

That water tower meeting. Tifa had remembered it fondly for all these years. 

Cloud had brooded alone on the water tower for as long as she’d known him, but one night, he had asked her to meet him up it.

And she’d been only too ridiculously excited about it. Cloud had started paying attention to her and she had started secretly reading the romance novel collection that had belonged to her mother and she was hoping desperately that Cloud was going to kiss her because maybe she’d had a serious case of puppy love for him since the pair of them had climbed Mt. Nibel together a few years before.

Dressing in the cutest dress she had and a pair of wedges that weren’t her best idea for climbing a ladder in, she’d snuck out of her house and went to the water tower. She’d forced herself to wait before climbing up. Both to be fashionably late and to steady her breathing.

That was the night Cloud had said he was going to be a SOLDIER. Disappointed as she was that he hadn’t called her up there to kiss her, she was still happy he’d decided to share this information with her. So she’d told him that when he became a SOLDIER, to come save her if she was ever in trouble. Made him promise he would in fact. 

There was no way he remembered making that promise though. He would have teased her about it if he did. 

She remembered him saying he was joining SOLDIER because he wanted to emulate the then celebrated war hero Sephiroth. Was that why he’d been so sensitive about Tifa asking about his time in the program? Sephiroth was the reason that Nibelheim burned to the ground, and even though it wasn’t public knowledge, other SOLDIER units would have been told if one of their own went rogue. Cloud had proven that their first meeting at the bar when he’d plainly answered her question about knowing what happened to their hometown. 

Could that be why Cloud was so ornery about SOLDIER? The hero he’d admired had turned out to be a monster and he was disillusioned with the whole thing? It was as good a reason as any to explain Cloud’s flippant mood swings, though it did little to explain why he’d run out on her last night with nothing to say but “sorry”.

There were a few theories she could ponder as to why he’d done that, but she would have to talk to him directly to prove anything for sure.

Hadn’t she just been telling herself to stop thinking about Cloud and get to work? Well, there was nothing doing now, if she didn’t talk to Cloud, it would be another day of screwed up drink orders and burned burgers.

That was that in Tifa’s mind. Talking to Cloud was going to be better for business so she had better go do it.

* * *

Cloud woke at the first rays of daylight with a rabid hunger, but not for food.

The liaison with Tifa last night had relieved some tension but he was still wound tighter than he cared to be. The sex had been a temporary relief, not the bone-deep relief he wanted. He’d have to talk to her for that. Tell her everything. How he’d let her down in Nibelheim when he chose revenge over her complete safety. How he’d let her down again last night by upsetting her and then just taking what he wanted from her like an animal. Just get her good and vulnerable so she wouldn’t question his attentions. Or his groping hands.

Years ago he had promised to save her if she ever needed it. But every time he saw her after that promise, in Nibelheim when he was sixteen, and now, five years after that, all he continued to cause her was harm. 

Some protector he was. 

But he couldn’t face talking to her. 

Today was Thursday. His merc job was tomorrow night. It was back to his original plan: avoid Tifa until the job was done, talk to her one last time to get his pay, and then leave. Forever. 

Easy as that, right?

Not with Tifa living right next to him. As he stood leaning on the railing of the outdoor hallway of the boarding house, staring out at the slums as they came alive for another day, Tifa emerged from her room.

“Oh! Cloud, good morning…” Her cheeriness at the sight of him made him feel terrible all over again and he retreated without a word back into his dreary little room.

True to form, Tifa was not to be deterred that easily and came knocking at his door as soon as he’d closed it.

“Cloud, can we talk? Please?”

No answer came. Cloud stayed near the door though, because he knew Tifa was going to talk even if he wasn’t.

“Okay Cloud, fine, just listen to me if you’re not going to say anything, okay?” 

How right had he been?

“I know you’re upset. I don’t know about what but if it was something I did, I’m sorry. But I don’t think it was something _I_ did. I think it’s something _you think you did_ that’s upset you.”

Tifa was tempted to tell him to stay perfectly silent if she was right, but she didn’t want to piss him off unnecessarily. 

“You’ve always made mountains out of molehills overthinking every little thing that crosses your mind. You make problems where there are none because you put everyone into a box: a box where you’re the centre of all things! You’ve always been a bit of an ass that way. But whatever you’re making this problem between the two of us, it’s not real. Or at least not as bad as you’re making it out to be. Just tell me what it is so we can talk about it!”

There was no response from Cloud but Tifa didn’t really expect that there would be. She’d said her piece and it was up to Cloud to decide whether or not he was going to add to the dialogue. 

Eventually he would. Though the time limit on his coming to his senses was going to run on Tifa’s clock, not his. She’d give him till tonight to come to his senses. If he dilly-dallied then she might have to go looking for good throwing rocks.

* * *

Tifa had left after she’d delivered her monologue through Cloud’s door and, even though Cloud knew she’d be at her bar working, he stayed where he was all day long. He didn’t want to risk working odd jobs and bumping into her while he did them. The public scene that would follow, namely Tifa kicking his ass for snubbing her again, would ruin whatever image he’d started to impress on this place. 

So he stayed in his room, pacing like a caged animal, not even emerging to feed himself. 

His stomach grumbled angrily at his neglect; but like that was anything new. The last time he’d eaten well had been at his mother’s house, just hours before it burned to the ground.

And last night, with Tifa. Both the food she’d handed him and when she’d so willingly spread her legs…

“Damnit Cloud, stop,” he growled at himself when last night’s memories jumped once again to the forefront of his mind. If he still felt purely guilty over them it would be one thing to dwell on them, but the more time that passed, the less guilt he felt and the more he just wanted to do it all again. 

It was late now, so late even bars would be closing for the night. Tifa would be home soon. The only thing between the two of them would be a solitary wall and Cloud’s self control. And thinking about her shouting his name as she came was diminishing that self control quicker than he cared to admit.

The sudden sound of footsteps brought him out of his Tifa trance. That must be her now; but there was no sound of her door opening. There was instead, a tiny knock on his own door. 

“Um… hello? Cloud?”

The voice that called out came through the door at about the three foot mark. Unless Tifa had shrunk since he’d last seen her, he had a different late night caller.

He opened his door to find a small girl with a brown paper bag in her arms.

“Are you Cloud?” Her tiny voice was shy as she took in Cloud standing before her.

“Yeah.” He responded, trying to think of any children that might know his name. “You Marlene?”

The little girl nodded, looking a little surprised that he knew who she was.

“Not here to try and get me to find cats, are you?”

She shook her head no to that. “I’ve got food for you.” She lifted her small arms above her head to offer Cloud the takeout bag. “It’s a cheeseburger. Made right before we closed up for the night.”

“Huh,” Cloud said as he took the bag. “Well, I do hear you make a mean cheeseburger.”

Again she shook her head. “Tifa made this one special just for you. And I learned how to cook from Tifa, so it’s even better than mine.”

He’d been nothing but awful to Tifa, chopping at any olive branch she extended to him; and yet here she was, another branch in hand, ready to prod friendship out of him with it. And this particular branch being a greasy burger was right up his alley.

“Tell Tifa thank you for me, okay Marlene?”

“I will.”

“And here,” he reached into his pocket to extract some of his hard-earned, odd-job gil. “A tip for the trouble of delivery.”

“Thanks!” Marlene smiled as she examined the hundred gil coin Cloud had dropped into her small hand. “But it was easy. I’m staying with Tifa tonight while Daddy’s out.”

So the little girl had been sent along to deliver food to Cloud and get ready for bed at Tifa’s place tonight. That stopped him thinking about crawling into Tifa’s bed with her. Got him thinking about other things though.

Cloud crouched down to Marlene’s level, hoping to extract some more information from her. “How come Tifa didn’t bring this over?”

“She knew you wouldn’t open the door for her.”

“Yeah? How did she know that?”

“She said you didn’t open the door for her this morning. Is that true?”

“It is.”

The shyness was suddenly gone from the little girl and she puffed up with indignant fury the way only children can. “Why are you being mean to Tifa?” She demanded with a scowl.

“Just a force of habit, I think. I’ve always been kind of mean to Tifa.”

“Well stop it! Be nice to your friends or you won’t have any!”

“That’s good advice.” Surprisingly, Cloud meant that sincerely. If he wanted friends, he needed to start acting like one. 

“Tifa didn’t smile as much tonight, and I don’t like when she doesn’t smile!” Marlene continued, still all puffed up like an angry alley cat.

“I know I upset her, but do you think she’s so upset she’d never forgive me?”

“I don’t think she would have made you that burger if she was  _ that  _ upset,” Marlene said in a rather know-it-all tone of voice. “I think you just need to apologize to her.”

“You’re probably right.”

“You should apologize to her now!”

“I shouldn’t keep her from getting home from the bar,” Cloud replied as he uncrouched from Marlene’s level.

“She’s not at the bar,” Marlene said with a point. 

Cloud leaned out of his doorway to follow her pointed finger right to Tifa, who stood leaning against her own door with a sly smile on her beautiful face. She had known that Cloud wouldn’t talk unguarded to her but had hedged her bets that he would talk frankly with a child. There was no other way to talk to a child, after all. 

Sneaky. Truly devious. And yet, Cloud was glad to be tricked.

“Marlene honey, don’t bother Cloud all night now,” her sly smile widened as she said it. If there had been any doubt in Cloud’s mind that she hadn’t heard everything, that smile cleared it up.

“Okay Tifa. Goodnight Cloud!” 

“Goodnight Marlene,” Cloud replied as the little girl ducked into Tifa’s apartment, exclaiming about her tip and what she was going to buy with it.

“Tifa, I-”

Tifa waved her hand dismissively at whatever Cloud was about to say. “You had all day for that, I’m too tired to hear it now.”

“But-”

She cut him off again. “I’ve got Marlene the entirety of tomorrow. We’ll talk before you leave for the job, okay?”

Since she wasn’t going to hear another word out of his mouth now, he simply nodded.

“Goodnight, Cloud,” she said with a smile as she entered her own room. “Enjoy your food.”


	4. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end? I'm honestly not sure on this one. Sure, the main story is complete, but I'm thinking I need to add an epilogue of fluff because I love fluff. I'm not going to write it now, but maybe some day!

The day of AVALANCHE’s planned attack was finally at hand. The five headed out on the mission were to board the five o’clock train out of the slums and into Sector 7 where they were to lie low until sundown, and then break into a Shinra reactor to blow it up. 

It sounded so simple. But as five o’clock approached and Cloud headed to the station, appropriately named “the train graveyard” for nothing but looks alone, he was feeling like he should have made Tifa double the amount she was offering but he’d been thinking with a different head when he’d agreed to her insane plan.

Speaking of Tifa, he spotted her immediately among the crowd that had gathered for the rush hour express. She stood with the others that made up AVALANCHE, at least he assumed. She said that he would be the fifth on the mission and there were four others with her. Marlene was there as well, swinging from the arm of a huge black man who patiently let her do it. Tifa herself was smiling and talking and it looked like an inviting scene that he knew he should go over to. He should properly be introduced to the people whose lives he was about to protect, but he didn’t. He stayed back, as aloof as ever.

Jessie caught sight of him first and elbowed Tifa to tell her that her date from the other night was following her around. Tifa must have corrected her that Cloud was their merc because over the bustle of the station she was heard exclaiming: “ _You’re dating our merc_?!”

Tifa quickly excused herself from the stir that information had just caused and came over to where Cloud stood near the edge of the platform. The train was coming now, he could see it in the distance and he pretended to be very interested in that as Tifa approached him.

“Hey,” she said with a smile. “Glad to see you.”

“Because I owe you something, right?”

“Well, maybe a bit for that,” Tifa remarked, knowing right away it was an apology that Cloud owed her. “But I also just like seeing you. You know, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed you over the years until you walked into my bar the other day. That’s probably a silly thing to say about a boy that never wanted to be my friend, but it’s true.”

“I missed you too, Teef. I’ve always regretted how I treated you when we were kids.” There was an unguarded tenderness in Cloud’s voice and an earnestness in what he was saying that Tifa found hard to disbelieve.

“It’s funny how we are together,” Tifa commented.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, it seems like we’re always on the verge of hitting it off. I mean, we _really_ hit it off the other night, wouldn’t you say? Then something gets in the way and tears us apart again. And, if you ask me-”

“I didn’t.”

“Duly noted, smartass. It seems like that _something_ that always comes between us is SOLDIER.”

“Yeah, it does seem like that…” Cloud mumbled as the train pulled into the station. The doors to the passenger cars opened and the automated message overhead called out five minutes before departure. 

Tifa was talking about SOLDIER again. But he wasn’t angry about it this time. He’d decided he was going to tell her the truth. And now was as good a time to do it as he’d ever get. 

“Tifa, there’s something I want you to know. About why I was acting the way I was.”

“Cloud, the train is leaving in five minutes. We really don’t have time to unpack why you act the way you do in that small amount of time.” The sentiment was teasing but Tifa had to admit to herself that she was curious why Cloud’s mood had taken such extreme dips.

“I was never officially a SOLDIER.”

“Never a SOLDIER?” 

“I went and I tried - I really did try to get in... But I failed. The best I could get was a lowly infantry spot.”

“But what about the SOLDIER moves? And the mako eyes?”

“Quick learning and mako poisoning.” There was more of a story in there, but Tifa was right, five minutes was not enough time to unpack everything. 

“So that’s why you never came home. And why your name never showed up in papers.”

“Making an awful big deal about the papers, Teef.” 

“I looked for your name in them all the time, Cloud. I worried when I couldn’t find it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. I was so impressed when you said you were going to be a SOLDIER.”

“You want another truth? I only wanted to be a SOLDIER to impress you.”

Tifa laughed, her twinkling bell laughter filling the ugly train station with something beautiful. “That’s just the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. Though maybe not quite as sweet as you promising to come and save me when I needed it. Do you remember that promise?”

He did remember that promise, he’d been sure that she didn’t though. The smile that had been creeping up on Cloud’s face fell away. “Yeah. I do. I’ve broken it over and over again.”

“How do you figure?”

“It’s another long story.”

“Well, give me the basics. You’re not allowed to snub me again.”

“But the train-” It had already given it’s three minute warning.

“I’ll derail it with my bare hands to keep you here, don’t think that I won’t.”

He believed her. It didn’t make it any easier a story to tell but she deserved the truth.

“You’re wrong that I never came home. I did come back to Nibelheim before it was destroyed. I… I was there _when_ it was destroyed.”

“What? Where? With who? Doing what?” The questions came thick and fast.

“I… I was the Shinra infantry that came in with Zack and Sephiroth to investigate the mako generator. I was ashamed I wasn’t a SOLDIER so I hid. I didn’t want you to know I was a nobody.”

Tifa’s hands shot up to cover her mouth, the unconscious attempt to cover her shock. Or stop herself from yelling obscenities over Cloud’s having snubbed her yet again! Like she would have been anything but happy to see him roll back into town, SOLDIER or no. 

“I had no idea, Cloud.”

“No one did. Except my mother. I went to visit her right before _everything_ happened.”

This was all a lot of news all at once. And still there were more questions that Tifa needed to ask. “I was attacked by Sephiroth. And I remember before the fire that I was laying on the ground bleeding to death. I was in and out of it but I remember someone picking me up and moving me. You were the person that saved me, weren’t you?”

Cloud nodded, but said nothing. 

“Why do you think you broke your promise to me after _literally_ saving my life?”

“I thought I hadn’t saved you enough. I went to get revenge instead of getting you to complete safety. If I hadn’t gone back for Sephiroth, if I’d just kept carrying you out and away from there… I thought you died because of me when I could have kept you alive.” 

“But I am still alive, Cloud.”

“But no thanks to me! I’ve been mourning you for five years, Tifa.”

“How do you feel now knowing I’m not dead?” 

“When I realized it was you who was trying to hire me as a merc… I was happy. _Am_ happy. I am happy you’re alive. But I can’t shake the feeling I let you down. In Nibelheim when I left you to die... And then the other night now as well.”

“But... how?” She had been following along with Cloud’s feelings up to the point of their tryst. Why was he so determined to spin it as a bad thing? “Didn’t you want it?”

“Too much.”

“But don’t you think I wanted it too?”

“Did you fully?”

Tifa crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side. “If I hadn’t wanted it, you would have been unconscious and bleeding from the head in a second flat.”

“What about after?”

“After? You mean when you ran out? That’s what I’ve been so confused about. What did I do that put you off like that?” 

“I just thought you wanted me to go.”

“Why?”

“You were trying to push me away afterwards.”

Tifa tried to fit her after-sex actions into the narrative Cloud had in his head. She hadn’t tried to push him away. She’d pushed herself upwards: had that been what he thought was her dismissal of him?

“No, you idiot!” She exclaimed with a frustrated smile and a punch to his chest. “I wasn’t pushing you away. I was sitting up to get you to kiss me again!”

Cloud looked shocked at the revelation. “A kiss?”

“Yup. A kiss. But it’s like I said, you put everything in a box with you at the centre and won’t hear anything that goes against the judgement you’ve already passed. The judgement being that you had let me down years ago and you were bound to do it again, right? So you’ve been brooding silently and alone and completely unnecessarily because you thought the worst of the situation.”

Had Tifa always been this insightful? Maybe if he had ever paid attention to her before now, he would have seen it sooner. 

“So you don’t feel like I took advantage of you?”

“Not at all.”

“And you don’t think I broke our promise?”

“No. But even if you did, it was an awfully selfish promise for me to force you into in the first place. Besides, I can look after myself nowadays, so you’re off the hook.”

“Don’t I feel stupid,” Cloud muttered as he looked towards the train. It was letting loose it’s final boarding tone, just a couple dozen seconds left before it sped off. 

“As you very much should,” Tifa said with a smirk. “But you don’t have to keep brooding. We’re finally on the same page. So…”

“So?”

“So just kiss me now.”

“And you’ll forget all about yesterday?” Cloud asked, stepping closer to Tifa.

“Absolutely not! I’m going to hold that nonsense over your head for a long, long time. But I’ll forgive you for the snub.”

Seemed a fair enough deal to Cloud. A reconciliation sealed with a kiss. And the promise of a future of some kind where Cloud was still welcomed in Tifa’s life.

Tifa leaned her face upwards and Cloud stepped closer still. But the kiss was rudely interrupted by the task at hand. The leader of the operation leaned out of the closest carriage door and grabbed Cloud by his collar.

“C’mon SOLDIER boy, don’t miss the damn train!” The muscle bound man said as he dragged Cloud through the doors just as they were closing.

“Barret!” Tifa screamed every rude word she knew (and she knew a lot from working in a bar for the past five years) after Barret, but the train’s doors banged closed and started pulling out with a loud squeal, and her frustration was lost in the clatter. 

Cloud was visible through the windows in the doors though, and he was smiling.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly to herself as the train disappeared rapidly into the distance. “I’ll get that kiss when he gets back… as long as he doesn’t die before then…”

Great. One worry gets cleared up, but another one comes to immediately take its place. And this worry felt a lot heavier than thinking she’d been too vanilla in bed for him. He’d been so honest and open just then: it’s what she’d always wanted from him.

It had been easy to fall in love with Cloud when she was a kid. But she found herself thinking now that her puppy love for the boy could easily turn into actual love for the man. She’d met him on a Tuesday and it seemed like love by Friday.

Yup, things in Tifa’s life just had a habit of becoming much harder than they needed to be. But at least this new development left her smiling.

Marlene stood behind Tifa, taking in the scene of the kiss and Tifa’s frustrations when it had turned into an almost kiss. Now Tifa stood smiling after the departing train and she was curious how she had jumped from so many emotions in such a short amount of time. 

“Are you worried about Cloud again?” She asked. 

Tifa turned with a small start to look down at the little girl that she had forgotten she was babysitting once again. 

“A little,” she answered with an embarrassed look as she wondered how much Marlene understood of what had happened.

“The same kind of worried as before?”

“No, not the same kind of worried as before.” 

“How come?”

“Well because,” Tifa replied with a laugh as she scooped the little girl up into her arms and began walking back into the slum centre, “He’s much better with that sword than he is with feelings.”

But, Cloud had said it himself, he was a quick learner. If he could learn SOLDIER skills, he could learn to talk to Tifa before jumping to any more conclusions. She’d start those lessons tonight when he got back… well, maybe in the morning. 

If she ever wanted to find a comfortable position on her bed again for a sound night’s sleep, Cloud would have to be there with her.


End file.
